Book Summary and Reviews of Merry-Go-Round Broke Down by David Woo, Margalit Shinar

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Jerry Stephens

Creative story of global intrigue
Two gunmen storm a hotel bar and seize several people as hostages. Sounds like a potential instance of the Stockholm Syndrome ready to be played out. It is, however, the beginning of a much more complicated story. The butterfly effect, a factor in chaos theory, may be a more accurate description of the story created by two very talented and creative thinkers and writers. But that simple description is getting far ahead of the actual story. The novel is actually several stories of individual and very personal activity with only the most seemingly tenuous of connections. But the separate individuals really are connected in a major way: the positive and negative outcomes of economic globalization. The stories are, however, much more than globalization as they touch on the hopes, dreams, desires, and ambitions of these very individuals. The first story is about the manager of a small industrial plant in rural China. The plant is in serious financial jeopardy. Its closure will harm the very livelihoods of the small populated community it is located in. Then follows the story of the American industrial genius who sets out to strengthen this Chinese plant by closing and relocating a similar American industrial plant to that Chinese location. The remaining stories add real complications to this first seemingly simple challenge of global industrial competition. The two authors are a married couple presently living in Israel. David Woo is an economist with a PhD degree from Columbia University. He has been an investment strategist and has been described as significantly influential in market, public policy, and global investment activities. Woo calls himself “a true product of globalization” having lived in the United States and Taiwan and with fluency in several languages. Shinar is an architect with degrees in art history and architecture. She has edited books on Israel and is also fluent in several languages. The novel begins in New York City, travels to China, the United States, Japan, England, Norway, Brazil, Cuba, and back to the United States with all the characters converging on the New York City hotel. It is tempting to act as a spoiler and give too much away. But that would deny the reader the opportunity to figure out in advance how all the intrigue will actually play out. At the book’s conclusion, the reader likely will marvel at how accurate the application of the idea of the butterfly effect really is to the novel. Some of the individual stories may resonate more with the reader than others. But the total effect of the intertwining nature of the individual stories is a truly intriguing matter. This was a novel that was hard to put down at any time. Highly recommended for the reader interested in global finance and economics. But also highly recommended for the reader who wants to see how a creative mystery plays out as we read.

Janine_S

Excellent read about the impact of globalization
Contemporary fiction that reads like a propulsive thriller! Tackling the topic of the “butterfly effect” of globalization through nine linked “parables,” the book entertains while it educates the reader on how the financial world works.

The book starts and finishes with a hostage takeover at a globalization conference in New York. Each of the hostages has a story to tell of their part in the 2000s boom and bust era that crossed borders and affected ordinary lives. The parables are a series of handoffs. It starts with a Chinese factory needing a miracle for an American company to shift manufacturing to their plant. It then crosses to America where an American plant will close down because those jobs will go to China. The handoffs continue down to a Norwegian fishing village buying mortgages. Each parable is a separate story - all showing the real world people live in. There are the greedy people who are in for the money and there are the simple people from a Japanese woman trying not to be subservient and forging her own financial independence or the illegal immigrant being taken by scam or to a woman fighting to keep the Amazon safe. Regardless of where the person fits, everyone is a part of globalization.

This is a fascinating way to tell an important story. We are all bound together in the search for profit. Some are more rapacious than others - and the authors get that through in clear, simple language without having to use adjectives to get the message across that these characters are not the nice guys. Tomoko Watanabe’s story is perhaps the best in my opinion. Her reasons for profit are not so much greed as to get her family out of its financial crisis due to her husband losing his pension. And then there is the stunning irony of the ending - you have to read this book to find out what I mean; you will not be disappointed.

My thanks to BookBrowse and the publisher, Regalo Press for granting me access to this marvelous book. Highly recommend.